Mozhi: Magical beyond words

When you have a specially abled person as the protagonist in a movie, you can definitely rest assured of one thing- your protagonist would definitely be someone waning away time in self- pity and all the characters around him/ her would be sympathisers. I also strongly believed this, till I watched "Mozhi". Pyramid Saimira and Prakash Raaj's Duet Films' jointly produce "Mozhi" (Tamil) written and directed by Radha Mohan. Mozhi is the story of Archana (Jyothika in her career best performance), a deaf and mute girl who comes into contact with a young musician, Karthik (Prithviraaj displaying a never seen before subtlety and maturity) who falls for her in the very first sight. Archana does not consider herself less able than anyone else and believes on living her life independently in her own terms. She hates men and marriage since her father had left her and her mother once he came to know about Archana's disability. She gets friendly with Karthik in no time but starts spurning him when he expresses his love for her. The rest of the movie is about Karthik's struggle to win over Archana and bringing about a change of mindset in her. Providing valuable inputs to the Karthik- Archana affair are their friends- Viji (Prakash Raaj displaying his abundant talent) , a music conductor and Karthik's friend and Angeline Sheela (Swarnamaalya, adequate), a teacher at a school for the specially- abled and Archana's close friend. There are quite a few interesting characters too- Archana's grandmother (Vatsala Rajagopal), the secretary of the apartment where Karthik and Archana stay (a hilarious Brahmanandam) and the Professor who has lost his memory following his son's accidental death in 1984. The strength of Mozhi is its closeness to reality. The characters, incidents and the dialogues in the movie appear very real and natural, and do not even border on melodrama. This gives a strong identifiability to the characters of the movie. The hero might look idealistic when he decides to marry a specially abled girl, but the way the story progresses and the characters have been presented, we feel, anybody would have fallen in love with the strong, gutsy Archana. The humor that runs as an under current in this very serious love story just sparkles with situations drawn from daily life. The strongest aspect of Mozhi is its brilliant music score. Vairamuthu's meaningful lyrics have been set to lilting tunes by Vidyasaagar. Jassie Gift's "Sevvanam Selaiyaketti"; Karthik and Sujatha's "Katrin Mozhi"; SPB's "Kannal paesum" and Madhu Balakrishnan's "Pesamadanthaye" are the best songs one has heard in recent times. K V Guhan's camera spells magic on screen. The editing is perfect. The Art Director goes a little overboard at times though. Radha Mohan's taut script and excellent direction does enough to make Mozhi a modern classic. This one is not to be missed!